Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It goes without saying that this is an extremely important subject and I am glad that we have the debate on it and that Members have the opportunity to contribute. It is a subject to which this Dáil should return on a constant basis, reviewing targets and progress and keeping abreast of all international developments. I want to refer in particular to the fact that over the course of the past five years, as a member of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, along with Deputy Durkan, we engaged on a constant and consistent basis with non-governmental organisations, both Irish and from abroad, on the whole area of climate change and particularly on the area of overseas development aid.

It was a subject upon which we had very good exchange and dialogue. I commend the great work undertaken by so many Irish NGOs and their international partnerships. They tried to get across to the public - which is not an easy message - the need to deal in an effective manner with climate change and the need to assist so many developing countries.

On a number of occasions during the last Dáil I asked successive Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Trade what percentage of overseas development aid would be spent on climate justice or climate-related initiatives. We operate a substantial overseas development aid programme as a small country, and it is very important that a significant proportion of that spending is devoted to climate justice or climate-related initiatives. In the past ten days the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Flanagan, replied to me saying that the policy commitments were reflected in the policy document "The Global Island: Ireland's Foreign Policy for a Changing World." The report refers to the impacts of climate change on weather and ecosystems and their adverse effects, particularly on the poorest people in the least developed countries. It behoves all of us to ensure we have a good ODA budget regardless of the challenges that always exist with regard to the public finances. It becomes more challenging in better economic times to try and reach the expected targets - which are accepted by so many developed countries - and in reaching the UN target. The monetary amount increases as the economy grows and there are always competing demands on the Exchequer regardless of good economic times. It is obviously more challenging through adverse times or times of austerity.

For the record, the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, outlined to me that the official ODA programme for 2016 is €641 million. All of us who take an interest in the least developed countries and in trying to assist the poorest people in the world would like to see that fund steadily grow. We should try to work together in this Dáil to ensure that we incrementally achieve the important UN target to which we have pledged. I understand that 7% of funding under the Irish Aid programme for 2016 will be devoted to climate-related initiatives in developing countries. It is a sizeable amount of the ODA budget, but the initiatives have the potential to be of great benefit and provide a great return to the communities served by the fund and to wider society. It would also be a good return to the Irish taxpayer, who has selflessly provided this funding over the years, even in the most difficult of times.

Deputy Durkan has made strong contributions to debates on overseas development aid. He may recall a discussion we had with Professor John Sweeney and others at the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade. It is of concern that there can be ill-informed commentary with regard to the role of the agricultural sector. Those of us who come from rural Ireland and are familiar with agricultural systems know that our farmers work to a very high, demanding and exacting standard. Our food is produced on a top-class sustainable basis. That is the way we want to continue. The standards that are imposed on farmers reduce and restrict their ability to produce, and that is a cost to the individual farmers. However, in fairness to the farming community, it has embraced the new environmental standards. Farmers have also embraced exacting and very demanding animal husbandry standards. Over the past 20 years, different programs were put in place whereby farmers were obliged to reduce production, with some compensatory payments, through schemes such as the rural environment protection scheme and the agri-environment options scheme. These partially offset the reduction in income that arose from lower production, and the countryside benefited big time from those schemes. The environmental scheme is not funded to the level that we would like. I hope it will be possible to improve the measures that are in place today.

At that particular committee meeting, if I recall correctly, witnesses referred to a need for farmers to diversify. However, diversification is not straightforward and sometimes a simplistic attitude is taken that farmers can switch from one production system to another. That does not happen. It should be acknowledged that we are very fortunate in our grass-based system, which makes dairy and beef our primary outputs. It is not that easy to diversify while maintaining a viable income and ensuring that the farm remains in some way sustainable.

It is often lost in the debate that we have very sustainable food production systems in Ireland and throughout Europe. If food production in Ireland or Europe was to be significantly reduced, food would be brought in from less sustainable systems elsewhere. This would add to the whole emissions problem and would be a totally negative and adverse development. Our approach to livestock for dairy and beef gives Ireland particular advantages in this sector. This is why our farmers are, understandably, very reluctant to diversify away from that approach. Diversifying into new products and new farming systems poses huge challenges, not just in set-up costs but also in trying to identify and access new markets. It must be recognised that in the past 20 to 30 years our farming practices have improved considerably and our food processing sectors have diversified, and they have been exceptionally good at adding value and developing new products. Diversification has happened in the agrifood sector and it has been particularly advantageous as well as being necessary. It is important, in this whole complicated area which embraces so many elements, that we are cognisant of the very demanding and exacting standards that we have on our farms and in our food processing facilities.

I received correspondence recently which referred to a speech I made in 2008 at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Brussels. France held the Presidency at that time, and Michel Barnier was the French agriculture Minister, later to be a member of the European Commission. I asked Mr. Barnier to put onto the Council agenda the need for coherence between the climate change and food security agendas in Europe. I highlighted that where systems and farming practices are modern and sustainable, production in those systems must not be restricted and replaced by products coming from less sustainable systems such as those in South America. That would defeat the whole purpose of our attempts to reduce emissions.

We welcome the agreements that have been made over recent years, but there is a great deal of work still to be done, and progress is needed. There are very serious issues facing the global community and we all have a contribution to make. We all have obligations to bring about change in our own daily practices and in what we do as an island and as a country. There are no easy solutions. However, in general commentary, the agricultural community and the food community are believed to be responsible for some of the negative aspects regarding emissions and climate change. That is not fair, nor is it justified. We want our farming practices to be of the highest standard. We need our food production systems to be of the highest standard. This is why we need coherence in the whole area of climate change and food security.

We are all well aware that the world population is growing significantly annually. There is an increasing demand for food. With increasing organisation and growth in population, there is additional pressure on the food production systems. We, therefore, have to try to ensure that adequate food is produced in a sustainable way and, at the same time, that we also meet and deal in a much more ambitious and progressive way with the real issues of climate change. From that point of view, there is a significant necessity for ensuring that we try to ensure that enough food is produced to feed the growing population of the world in sustainable systems.

In 2010, we put in place the Food Harvest 2020 strategy. It was an ambitious and realisable strategy for the agrifood industry. At the time, when that committee which I put in place was working on it, the environmental sector as well as other sectors participated in it. The strategy was unanimously adopted and its targets have been met. There is no reason we cannot increase food production in a sustainable manner and still meet the quite rightly onerous demands on us to contribute in a significant way to climate change issues.

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